Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Windom wrote:

Does the length of the angled cut surface leading to the blowing edge matter in terms of the behavior of the flute? Ease of playing, quality of sound?

Suppose the wall thickness of flute A is 3 mm, and that of flute B is 8 mm, and both have an identical utaguchi angle of 20 degrees. The mathematical length of the cut leading to the blowing edge will be 9 mm in flute A (3/sin 20°), and 23 mm in flute B (8/sin 20°), and since the utaguchi won't be infinitely sharp, the cut will probably be a few millimeters shorter in reality. That seems like quite a big difference.

The cheap PVC shakuhachi being sold have thickened top ends, and I can only assume it's to make the utaguchi beefier.

Hi Windom, Yes. The utaguchi depth and wall thickness affect the playability and timbre. To use the analogy of an automobile, I feel the bore of a flute is the engine and the utaguchi is the steering wheel (your embouchure being the gas pedal). The ideal angle and depth fashioning will bring the maneuverability into Power Steering mode while the opposite end of the spectrum will feel like Manual Steering.  Of course, it is the really the choice of the experienced maker to have either steering feature for the desired sound and playability.

Here's a thread on this forum where I show the depth of inlay as it gets refined:

http://www.shakuhachiforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=1739

Every little bit removed affects the playability and sound. I base my decisions on the evenness of balance across both registers for the most dynamic timbres according to my understanding of shakuhachi music.

Hope this helps. Every bamboo piece is different so it's often quite difficult to pinpoint exactly what does what. Since you are working on PVC, you will be able to build your experience on a consistent material where all things are equal.  What works on a PVC utaguchi will most certainly not have the exact same affect on a piece of bamboo. Mainly, because of the bore difference.


Enjoy on your discoveries and please do let us know what you find.
Perry

I recently made an and-blown flute from 22mm copper water-pipe. The wall thickness is only 1 mm meaning I couldn't create any angled lead-in to the notch.
To create the notch, I drilled a hole 7mm in diameter near the end of the pipe, then sawed of the end leaving a semi-circular notch. I drilled the flute with six finger holes for a diatonic scale.
Well, darn it, the thing blows as sweet as a bird.......... It's not hard to get it to sound, with less adjusting of the embouchure than with the several other more conventional end-blown bamboo flutes I own.
I finished it off by rubbing the pipe with fine sandpaper to get a bright brushed finished, then sprayed with clear lacquer. It glows like gold.

Jeff Cairns wrote:

and7barton, try sticking the blowing end of the flute between your upper lip and top teeth in such a way that your tongue (which is curled slightly down at the tip and is inside your lower teeth) rests lightly at the lower edge of the blowing end and the entire opening sits slightly off center to the right side of your mouth.  The right side of the blowing end will be sealed by the right side of your mouth, but the left side is open.  Now blow lightly.  You are now playing a variation of a Persian Ney.
From this perspective, one can understand the possible transition from the Ney to the eventual shakuhachi.  Practicality!

Thanks, I'll try that....... but not yet. I've just consumed pork chops and a pile of fried onions.......
I have a half-metre length of clear plexiglass tubing, outside diameter 24mm, inside diameter 20mm.
No prizes for guessing what I've got in mind.
Richard

and7barton wrote:

I used to play the Cornett (Not the CORNET !) - Am I correct in assuming that the blowing technique of the NEY is similar to this ?  - I used to play the CORNETT using rather too much pressure, rather in the manner of the trumpet technique, but disposed of my own instrument before making this discovery.

No totally different embouchure and sound production methods.

Ney is a flute with an open mouthpiece, cornetto is a closed trumpet embouchure. And with the cornetto you must indeed use a very tight embouchure, much tighter than a conventional trumpet. Because the mouthpiece is smaller.